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The Space Shuttle Discovery left the International Space Station this morning for the last time. To commemorate the ship's accomplishments over 27 years of service, the crew was greeted to a morning wake-up message from Capt. Kirk. "Space, the final frontier," Shatner said in a prerecorded message. "These have been the voyages of the space shuttle Discovery. Her 30-year mission: to seek out new science, to build new outposts, to bring nations together on the final frontier, to boldly go and do what no spacecraft has done before."

and it was simply awesome. Obviously anyone listening to most news radio shows on their drive will have heard it. I wonder how much the current generation connects to those words? I know that some will equate it with Star Trek but I wonder how many have seen it. I was further amazed at how much his voice did not seem to have changed.

"Shatner said in a prerecorded message." Historic event, he almost considered waking up for it.

They tried doing a live version, but gave up and simply cut out all the pauses between the words. They were also afraid that Ricardo Montalban would show up in the middle of the introduction. Instead of a wakeup call with some memorable words, there'd be a scream so powerful that it would be capable of making sound in a vacuum. "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!". I mean, imagine waking up to that.

So NASA kinda looked at all the pros and cons, and decided that the best option was simply not to invite Shatner personally. He's been known to be a bit of a prick at times too, so that's why people don't invite him to the cool parties anymore either. That, and that horrible toupee. Does he still wear the toupee?

There are two geeks sitting here who are trying to work out whether to cry, giggle, or giggle till they cry. This is the whole point of (good, hard) science fiction....to predict things so well that there's no real option but to go out and do it for real. Good on Discovery, good on Shatner, good on Roddenberry and good on humanity in general.

Yes, we were promised jetpacks back in the 70s, but this is nearly as good, and frankly, has a whole lot more charm. I love this stuff.

But, it's so appropriate. Ask a lot of the Astronauts and Engineers at NASA what inspired them as children to work for NASA and in space and you will get a pretty good percentage of people citing how they, as kids, sat around a tiny television set in the late 60s or early 70s watching Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock explore the galaxy.

I can't think of a better or more appropriate way to send off the Discovery as it goes home. (There is a little bit of me in the back of my head that wished that the Space Shuttle Enterprise made it to space - then Shatner's sendoff would be even more appropriate.)

So has anime, but if I'm on the ISS and the theme from Astro Boy comes out of the speakers, I'm unlikely to recognize its cultural significance.

That's because is has no cultural significance beyond a few nerdy fanboys. Star Trek is a massive, multinational, franchise. The last film brought in $125 million internationally, and indeed it was shown on the space station when it came out. Kirk and Spock are internationally known by anyone with the slightest interest in space.

But it is in their best interest. The people are government. If you have a lot of people without roofs you have a lot of angry people not doing their part to move the country forward. Eventually they come and burn down your roof to make the point sink home.

It was gone for many decades there. Any bets on how long it will take them to get a government that does not act in the best interest of all people there, if they ever get one? Hint: even in the so-called democratic countries, a government making politics for the people, and not for themselves and their surrounding lobbyists, is a rare thing.

True that. It's a balance. We can't bankrupt ourselves to keep everyone living well. That's where the tough part of the job comes in. I pity those SOBs in Washington DC. No matter what they do someone somewhere hates them for it.

It isn't the job of the US Government to put a roof over anyone's head.

That is interesting.What else is its job then?The chinese define the job of the government as follows:a) make sure everyone has enough to eatb) make sure everyone has enough to be clothedc) make sure everyone has access to health cared) make sure everyone has a roof over his heade) and most of all: make sure everyone has access to education

This are the five main principles a ruler or a government should follow.

No way, a constitutional republic built upon ideas of individualism and democracy* operating under a vaguely capitalist economic structure has a different idea of what government should be to that of a totalitarian government operating under a vaguely communist economic structure. Who would have thunk it?

> When everyone in the US has a roof over his head, then the space programme can be restarted.

We have enough roofs for everyone, we just value our personal space a lot. How many people could live in the houses of slashdotters alone without straining the physical location's ability to support them?

This is quite possibly one of the dumbest statements ever. "Hey Columbus, no more boats for you until every king's subject is a free man...."

Exploring space is worth FAR more then wasting money on people who should either do for themsleves or die out. Exploring space > wasting money on a worthless human that cant even take care of itself. We have BILLIONS of humans and we recklessesly encourage EVERY human to make more.

Consider space exploration the mother of all insurance policies. It is absolutely imperative that we learn how to live off this rock for the survival of the species. There is no debate on this. At SOME point we HAVE to get off this rock. Armageddon literally could be tomorrow or several billion years from now.

That William Shatner has, for more than the last decade, made an entire career out of being a parody of himself?

I think it started with those Priceline commercials where he was singing "I've got two tickets to paradise..", and since then, all he's done is essentially do an SNL skit where William Shatner plays William Shatner hamming it up.

That William Shatner has, for more than the last decade, made an entire career out of being a parody of himself?

I think it started with those Priceline commercials where he was singing "I've got two tickets to paradise..", and since then, all he's done is essentially do an SNL skit where William Shatner plays William Shatner hamming it up.

And only he could get away with it.

Yeah, I was just thinking about that. Except when it came across my mind, it was Adam West. As in the term, "Adam Westing", as it's come to be known in some circles. And how he was doing it while Shatner was still acting like an ass to his former castmates.

Not that I'm complaining; Shatner really needed to get over himself and stop taking himself so seriously, of course.

That reminds me of the SNL skit where Eddie Murphy teaches Stevie Wonder to do a Stevie Wonder impression... Can't get to the YouTube link from here, but here's an excerpt from the skit transcript [jt.org]:

"These have been... the voyages... of the space shuttle... Discovery.Her 30-year mission:... to seek out.. new science,... to build new... outposts,... to bring nations together... on the final frontier,... to boldly go... and do what... no spacecraft... has done before."

What's sad is how NASA bureaucrats butchered up such a classic into. It's unlike the never ending speech they give when the Shuttle launches...

Liftoff of mission ## with the the first gay, transgendered Muslims proving NASA Administrators are really cool guys and will now maybe get an invite to the Hollywood parties where scantily clad girls will rub up against them, which is the closet most of them get to a female in years, flight!

The Enterprise was *meant* to be refitted for spaceflight after atmospheric and landing trials; unfortunately some specs changed while building Columbia, and overhauling Enterprise would've meant a very expensive tear-down and rebuild, so they built Challenger around a test bed frame instead.

It's worth noting that a massive letter writing campaign organized by Star Trek fans in 1979 convinced NASA to rename the first Space Shuttle, originally the USS Constitution, "USS Enterprise" and the first black female, Dr. Mae Jemison, was inspired to pursue her career after seeing Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) on the original series.

The influence of Star Trek can be seen everywhere, but polls of NASA engineers have revealed that a good portion of them were motivated toward aerospace careers because

The rule about splitting infinitives is a prescriptivist grammarian trope. In other words, it's fine as a recommendation, but it isn't really a rule: a bunch of people invented it as a heuristic a hundred years ago and since then grammar nazis have used it. "To boldly go" actually sounds slightly better to my ear because it is two iambs in a row.

If it's clear from the sentence that it is an infinitive, it doesn't sound awkward, and it is clear that the modifiers modify what you intend them to, it doesn't

You may call him a has been, but how many current astronauts were inspired by shows like Star Trek?
You could also call James Doohan a has-been actor, but that man inspired so many people, such as myself, to go in to engineering. RIP Scotty.

well, technically Doohan is a has-been considering he's dead. That shouldn't take anything away from the quality of work he did when he was alive or the impact it had on anyone's life.

On topic though, I don't get why it would be a problem that a person who played an iconic character in popular culture that relates to space exploration did this. It would certainly make less sense for someone who is currently popular but has no relationship to the subject matter to have been selected.

Space shuttle is propably the most complicated piece of technology ever developed. Over one million moving parts. It was created 30 years ago. Sometimes I think that in many fields technology has peaked back then...